Officers’ wives vs Enlisted wives

OK! so I am fairly new to this whole military life thing..(less than 2 years..). All I know about military life is what I see on Army wives and from my USAF officer FI. My FI grew up as a military brat and his dad was enlisted…Fi then went to USAFA and is now an officer. Is there really this social divide between enlisted and officers??? An officer’s wife recently responded on one of my posts something to the effect of.. ‘this cost this much..and that cost that much..can you really afford that on an AIRMAN’s salary because MY husband is an OFFICER and we would struggle’. Ill tell you, I was furious for all of the enlisted wives that this sterotype of officers’ wives is true and they think they are better! I was litterally disgusted by the comment, and FI was too! I know that salary is no secret in the military..but DAMN.. I feel like it is sooooooo reduntant to bring up SOMEONE ELSE’S finances! At that moment, i was ashamed to be an officer’s wife. Have any of you come across this behavior? Do you enlisted wives have experience with other wives like this? This is so tasteless and disgracefull..

@EmeraldR: OK thankyou! I feel the same way! I am glad that the sterotype doesn’t always hold true. My FI did tell me that it is not appropriate for me to hang out with the enlisted wives though.. (i have NO wives as friends..enlisted or officer) but I feel like.. how can you tell me who to be friends with??! I understand he is like the boss.. but jeeze.. I can be friends with the my husband’s boss in the ‘real world’ can’t i??

@Karissa: Ha. I would be too, and if she’s going to stereotype, how about this: every officer in the Air Force I knew cheated on their wife. Seriously. It was AWFUL. I was in the Air Force for 4 years and to this day if a guy tells me he is/was an Officer I get a shiver down the back of my spine. My old boss at my civilian company is married to a girl I worked with in another dept. I saw this picture of him before I knew him and I was like: OH NO YOU’RE MARRIED TO AN OFFICER?

Yeah. Sad to say. They’re still married and have 2 babies. Oh, and he has another one with another girl that works with us. Niiiiice.

Total tangent, but officer’s and their wives think they’re better because they’re commissioned. Anyone can google the paychart for the military and know what a person’s MILITARY income is — but how does that tell them anything ELSE about their finances?

Im the wife of an enlisted airman. I can say Ive never really had any experiences of officer’s wives being like that. Of course, I do not live with my husband at the moments and I have little experience dealing with military wives as a whole. I do know that in my experience (mostly in forums) there does seem to be 2 groups, you have the really nice helpful wives and then you have the snotty, cliquey mean girl wives. I wouldnt say that divide is exclusive to the military though. Not at all. I just think that there are more of the 2nd group. I have definitely had some wives on some forums talk down to me like a moron for asking a question when DH first enlisted, it really kind of soured me on wife forums. I am not a participating member in any right now. I stick to WB because the ladies here aren’t snotty bitches. 🙂 (Love you guys!) I hang out more with the other airmen than I do their spouses. All of DHs buddies are pretty awesome.

I mean, its common knowledge the massive disparity in pay between enlisted and officer, even NCO. Talking about it seems very catty and inappropriate.

My dad was in the military my whole life, so although I was a kid, I do think there is a division between enlisted wives/families vs. officers wives/famlies.

I think alot of this has first to do with housing, if your an officer you live near other officers, you have your own community w/ very few if any enlisted families living in your “neighborhood.” So naturally wives become friends with neighbors and kids become friends with other officers kids.

Secondly, there are different family functions that occur w/in these divisions. For example, my dad was in the medical field, so we had many hospital family functions – once again the people present were mostly of a certain rank; therefore we saw them more often.

And like you said, rankings and salaries are to a level, prettyclear, so everyone does kind of have an idea of what your income is just based on that.

However, regardless of this “divison” people are people and some have tact and some don’t. No matter what a person’s income is, its up to the individual to be polite and classy.

@deetroitwhat: ok i really hope you dont know my FI then! LOL Listen, I have been a civi my whole life and I didn’t even know there was a difference between officers and enlisted! Who the hell cares who is commissioned?! Most people don”t even know what that is! And AMEN about the finances.. how pretentious!

The only officer’s wife I have had any association with was my FRG leader and while we only “met” through email, she seemed awesome! I have heard of this happening before, about the big social divide between officer and enlisted, but I was fortunate enough to never experience that…then again, that could have something to do with the fact that my DH and I lived apart and I never lived with him on post. lol And honestly, I don’t care if it was an officer’s wive, an enlisted wife, a joechomoe’s wife, lol….but I would get highly irritated if anyone made any assumptions about whether or not my DH and I could afford something…

I think you sound like a real good experience as to what an officer’s wife should act like….maybe kick that other lady in the shins?…kidding about the kicking part.. 🙂

@JsDragonfly: LOL!!! I wish I could! My FI was enraged!!! He kept looking at WB all night hahaha!!! I feel the same way.. who cares who my husband is.. his job does not define me as a person. And I feel the same way about the finances thing.. I was so grossed out by her comment.. partially because it was about finances and partially because it was a fellow military wife! Instead of us being supportive towards one another because we have similar backgrounds and tasks.. it was like purely judgemental!